Hetchins were actively involved in racing for decades and scored many victories, including World's and Olympic Championships in 1936. Above is Champion, Toni Merkens, with his 'trademark' downward curved handlebar stem and curly Hetchins. Merkens was a popular racer in the 1930s, with many victories to his credit, including Herne Hill (UK), a "Counties Trophy" in the popular five-mile Point-to-Point, and gold in the 1935 World's Championship Track amateur 200m sprint in Belgium. See Bike Cult com for listings of track champions since 1893.

Toni Merkens on the left, easily identified by the handlebar stem. On the right is Sellinger (USA). Foto: Olympics, 1936. Hetchins subsequently offered a Toni Merkens model; only one is known to have survived.

In 1939 Hetchins supplied bikes for a team composed of Burgess, Hey, Firth, and Rangeley, of the Bronte Wheelers Club, to take part in the Bath Road 100 race, sponsored by the Bath Road Club. They were victorious. Rangeley's medal survives. The sales records list the frames as "on loan" to the team. The foto below shows the team wearing the black Alpaca jackets typical of the time.

In 1952 Hetchins sponsored a team of riders in the Tour of Britain consisting of,
from the left below: Tony Smith, Dave Robinson, Hyman Hetchin (in cap), Tony Phillips, J. Saunders (hands on shoulders), and Sid Aldridge of the Romford R.C. William (Bill) Bellamy was also a member of the team but is not pictured; he crashed and did not finish the race.
The bike is Tony Phillips' Experto Crede.

Dave 'Minta' Robinson (pictured below) was a star performer. He rode the ToB 1951-2-3-4-8-9.
This 9th o/a was his best performance. The man in the rear (above) is Stan Saunders who
was probably team manager. He won the Brighton - Glasgow race (fore-runner of the ToB) in
1949 riding for the Dayton team. Below: Dave Robinson in flight (the bike is an Experto Crede).

Below: Tony Phillips in flight.

Bill Bellamy (team no. 58), pictured farther below, retired on Stage 11. He was the best rider in the Romford team, having already won the 8th edition of the Brighton - Glasgow that same year, and, as in the ToB, he was an amateur riding against top trade teams. In the '52 ToB, he had worn the leader's jersey 1st o/a in Stg.6 and held it for 2 days until losing it to the eventual tour winner, Ken Russell, on Stg.8. Bill's placings: 5th-Stg.1, 8th-Stg.5. Retired after crashing on Stg.11 (with 3 stages remaining).

There are reports on his performance as follows: 11th Stage Newcastle to Scarborough. This was a very fast stage won at an average speed of 27.4mph for the 88 mile long stage. Ken Russell won the stage from Ian Steel; they had a four minute lead on the next finishers. Five minutes after that the main bunch consisting of 27 riders finished. A minute after these riders, Bill Bellamy finished surrounded by his Romford-Hetchins team. Bill had careened off the road when taking a tight turn at a foot of a gulley. He was thrown over a barbed wire fence and ended up some twenty yards from the road in a field. He was plucky enough to remount and try and get back to the chasing bunch with the aid of his team mates, who had all stopped when he crashed badly. This must have been a strong and valiant ride to keep the loss down to one minute behind the chasing bunch. This effort was all in vain as the next day was a rest day and they took him to hospital for a precautionary examination. He was found to have a cracked vertebra. Hyman and his teammates sent a telegram to his parents informing them that their lad's bid for a double stage win that year had failed and he had had to retire from the Tour quite badly injured. In a tribute to his fallen rival, race leader Ken Russell said, 'For sheer riding ability, Bellamy was unbeatable. He had the uncanny knack of travelling at 30s, yet only appeared to be doing 20.' (Or was it due his Hetchins?? - writer's query)

Paul Hetchin added the following: "My Dad told me a few times about a fellow called Bill Bellamy riding a Hetchins in the "Tour Of Britain" and crashing and getting badly injured while leading the race with just a couple of days to go." Below: Bill Bellamy with Hyman Hetchin in front of the Seven Sisters Road shop, 1952 (the frame is a Mag. Bonum).

Tony Smith's son reports that Tony, who passed away in 2008, remained an avid cyclist to the end of his days, though a bit wobbly towards the last.

This '52 Tour was particularly famous for two reasons. 1st.: The winner, Ken Russell, was a lone rider without team support, and 2nd.: both the French and Italian national teams withdrew on the 5th day because of their inability to obtain adequate food for racing due to British food rationing which was still in force.

One, possibly two, of the ToB bikes have survived. They are easily identified by the peculiar serial numbers: HET1, HET2, and so on to HET5.

The Editor wishes to thank Peter Underwood, Sid Ellis, Mick Butler, and Paul Hetchin, for providing the above details; Manu Palomeque, Tony Smith's son, provided the team foto; Mick Butler provided the foto of Bill Bellamy, and Mike Duffy recovered the fotos of the lads in flight and of Bill Bellamy and Hetch in Tottenham.

Hetchins sponsored many road races;
below is the program from one such in 1958.

John Wigglesworth, ex Polytechnic CC, sends the following: he, Ian Alsop, and Dick Swann Jr., participated in a match event at Gladbeck near Dusseldorf, Germany in 1960; Dick Swann Sr. was team manager; all rode Hetchins. John continues: "...most of Hetchins competition success was on the track, hence the straight chainstays; obviously the curly pre-war machines were very much a marketing ploy and a very successful one, as the curly stays are Hetchins in everybody's mind. [However,] Jack Denny admitted that they were just an advertising ploy and added nothing to frame performance, which is why nearly all track frames during the 1950-1970 period were straight-stayed. ... [Typical track bike equipment:] de riguer for chainset and cranks was BSA steel with half-inch block chains, BSA pedals, Brooks hand-made saddles with copper rivets, Titan and Cinelli steel stems were favorites, Airlite hubs were the most popular. As the sixties approached, aluminium chainsets, mainly TA, started to take over, as did (what a blessing) Campagnolo seat pillars, and Lyotard platform pedals."

The fotos and captions below are courtesy of John Wigglesworth. Start of the race in Gladbeck near Dusseldorf, Germany, 1960: at the far left, John Wigglesworth (looking over his left shoulder), at the far right, Ian Alsop (helping the next rider into his pedal); Ian rides an Experto Crede, inch pitch chainrings clearly visible.

Ian Alsop continues to represent Mexico and win medals at masters events, including the Huntsman World Seniors games, hill climbs and XC mountainbike events. http://www.hwsg.com/Archive/2002results/pages/mountainbiking.html listed him in the experts category for men aged 55-59, gold, mountainbiking, Huntsman World Senior Games, 2002.

Left: Dick Swann (on bike),
Gladbeck, Dusseldorf, 1960.

Left: John Wigglesworth at
Herne Hill, London, 1960.

Alan Johnson, ex Polytechnic CC, sends the following: "My brother Brian and myself were members of the Polytechnic club in the 1960s although we lived in Northamptonshire and our local track was Wicksteeds at Kettering until Leicester velodrome was built in 1967. We met Dick Swann at the Leicester grass track racing at the Saffron Lane site in the early 60s as he was living in Leicester to write a book about Victorian era champions (such as Bert Harris) and he encouraged us to join the London club. We both won club championships against the likes of Gowland and Robinson, Alsop etc., also North London division championships and medals in the national tandem sprint at Nottingham and Leicester. We were very soon astride Hetchins bikes and my brother Brian (who lives in Sydney) still has the one that Dick Swann senior is seen riding in the photo above. The frame I had as a schoolboy was number H 5028 and I won the National Championship on it, now in the possesion of Dave Marsh cycles South Yorkshire. The frame I had built by Hetchins in 1968 was an Experto Crede with lots of extra special features, but I sold it before coming to Aussie in 1980. I also had a Hetchins tandem, a pre-war job, which Scotty Alsop (Ian's father) gave to me and I won bronze and silver medals in the national championships at Leicester in 1968 and 1970 - the frame was damaged in around 1977 and repaired by Mike Mullet of Reading; it is currently with Dave Marsh. I also remember Ian Alsop's disappearance in 1968, which Peter Robinson and I often talk about when we meet up and talk of old times. Peter was in the London Poly and now also lives here in Perth Australia as I do." Fotos below courtesy of Brian and Alan Johnson.

There is a story that Brian Johnson was once chucked into the boating lake at Wicksteed Park in
Kettering as retribution for causing a crash in one of the track events. Alan's version of the story follows: "As regards the boating lake at Wicksteeds, that is the stuff of legend -- and was not true in fact. It was the Wicksteed Trophy race in 1962 and 6 or 7 riders crashed on the last lap. I remember it well as I was only 11 years old and can still see the crash clearly to this day. Brian actually punctured on the last lap and crashed onto the grass; the rider next to him panicked and swung to his right and cleaned up the whole bunch. Many were in hospital and at the next meeting the Kettering riders refused to ride against Brian. As regards throwing Brian in the lake, they would have liked to but us Johnsons came out in force and the spectators and family and friends that came out of the background from Corby were amazing. Brian was riding a 'Macleans Featherweight' frame on the day of the crash and as it was ruined in the crash Dick Swann gave Brian his own Hetchins which he rode from then on. The Kettering evening Telegraph made a big deal of it, as anything about Corby (only 8 miles away) was always viewed with a bit of distain in their eyes. To top it all, Brian had left the Kettering Friendly cycling club and had recently joined the Polytechnic cycling club. Roger Piggins won the Wicksteed Trophy race as I think he was the only one who stayed on his bike [after the crash]. Note for Jim Hendry archives regarding Wicksteeds track flying start lap record: Wicksteeds was an asphalt track. Our father Cyril of the Northampton Rovers Bicycle Club held the record from 1936 until about 1960 when none other than Dave Handley himself broke the record, and his time was 27.7; this was then lowered to 27.00 by John Burns of the Polytechnic a few years later. We mostly used aluminium rims for grass track racing, but our father would have used wood when he won the Northamptonshire 880 yards championship in 1934; I still have his medal here in Australia."

Below: Alan Johnson relates the following:
[I] finally found a picture of my long lost Hetchins Tandem. This picture was taken in the 1968 National Tandem Sprint at Leicester. No idea where it is now, that is me on the front [with his ears bewteen his elbows --Ed.]. The upper photo was the ride-off for bronze against Dave Marsh and Alan Downing steering. The Tandem they were using belonged to Raleigh where Dave Marsh worked and was indeed the same tandem used by Reg Harris and Alan Bannister in the 1948 London Olympics.
The lower photo is [from the] semi-final against Ian Allsop and Geoff Cooke; ... I was only 17 years old and Ken Downing 18.
If you recall Ian Allsop went to the Olympics in Mexico shortly after this race and rode in the team pursuit with a young Ian Hallam, Harry Jackson, and Ron Keeble. Ian Allsop never returned from Mexico City and I believe is there to this day. Such is the stuff of legends.

Below: three lads on fixies. Alan Johnson fills in the picture for us: It was taken in 1962 August or September, Brian [Johnson] and Lyn Morris (one of the other riders, on the left in the photo below) from Corby Northamptonshire rode to Cardiff and back across the Brecon Beacons on fixed wheels to Lyn's home town, Cardiff. I believe the picture was taken in Cardiff. While they were there, Lyn raced on the old track in Cardiff (Maindy Stadium) and they both met Don Skeen, the top Welsh Champion. I believe they stayed in youth hostels along the route. Great days to be cycling on the open road. --Alan & Brian Johnson

Below: Alan Johnson sends the following: here is a foto of me winning the East Midlands Hill Climb on Ambergate Hill Derbyshire in 1976, about 1500 yards long; I won it for Rockingham Forest Wheelers. The bike is a 1968 Experto Crede with Bonum fork crown, tang on the seat stay, and Airlite hubs. Note the double toe straps. --Alan Johnson

Above: a visitor to this web site writes: [the foto shows an Experto Crede] "....in a time trial ridden, just after his 15th birthday, by a suffering me. As you can see by dirty ankle bone and calf, I had just slid off a couple of minutes before, turning onto the foot of the grits. I had worked several years of evenings and Saturdays on the local fruit wholesale market, to the detriment of my studies, to buy what was a club boy's dream, and had just "upgraded" from fixed to Campag."
Readers of a certain age will regognize the chain droop in the foto above. At that time, when derailleur gears were relatively new, it was commonly believed that a tight chain would create drag and slow the rider down. So chain droop was very in. The owner continues: "it was an art form to set the Campag jockey wheel to allow some bottom gear droop without a washing line of slack chain on the smaller sprockets of the block. Indeed, a lost art." Foto courtesy of the owner. That bike is still in his possession, by the way; click here.

Below: S. Dolby, Leicester Road Club, ca. 1970s

Below: a full-chrome track bike from the 1970s;
it is unusual to find a curly track bike of this vintage.

Below: in case anyone thought no one seriously races Hetchins any more.